Take Sreten's advice or you will end up with a speaker that sounds worse than the original. Swapping drivers without considering acoustic slopes, driver sensitivity and how a specific dome shape will react to the waveguide is just asking for failure. Will swapping drivers make a difference? Yep but the result will be an altered frequency response instead of the already great response from the factory. You haven't even heard the speaker you ordered yet and already want to modify it? Give it a listen first, you may find it suits your needs as is.
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And I note from the schematic that not only Behringer designs in the textbook pin1 problem.🙄
Of course i will listen to them before
And maybe i will try to see if there is any part number somewhere
One thing is sure ... i will open them 😉
Then the idea to test the original and the modified one side by side with the same signal is intriguing
For instance i could get the FR of the new drivers and see
If it does not look right i will stop and revert to the original driver
Just one will be modified and used as guinea pig
I am not going to do anything of irreversible, i hope 😱
Thanks and regards,
gino
Hi,
You will get nowhere trying to upgrade the drivers.
I completely disagree that an approach can be "too refined" for
cheap speakers, anything that can save an op-amp is fair game.
If you think your buying a speaker with generic active crossovers
designed without any reference to the drivers to be used, and
you can swap and change drivers, you are very much mistaken.
High quality design costs less to make than poor quality design.
To significantly improve something you need to identify a problem
and then fix it, not stumble around in the dark hoping it will work.
Your fundamental problem is the B2030A is a nearfield speaker.
Limited real bass extension is your second major issue IMO.
For farfield Hi-Fi use you need something like this :
Baffle Step Compensation
Add a series capacitor to the above to also limit bass for use with subwoofers.
A powered sub with a 4 ohm amp and an 8 ohm
driver and an 8 ohm passive extension sub is good.
The two most effective things you can do, and I'm not guessing.
rgds, sreten.
Tweaks are possible but I'd have to have them and take them
apart and have a good look before deciding on what to do.
You will get nowhere trying to upgrade the drivers.
I completely disagree that an approach can be "too refined" for
cheap speakers, anything that can save an op-amp is fair game.
If you think your buying a speaker with generic active crossovers
designed without any reference to the drivers to be used, and
you can swap and change drivers, you are very much mistaken.
High quality design costs less to make than poor quality design.
To significantly improve something you need to identify a problem
and then fix it, not stumble around in the dark hoping it will work.
Your fundamental problem is the B2030A is a nearfield speaker.
Limited real bass extension is your second major issue IMO.
For farfield Hi-Fi use you need something like this :
Baffle Step Compensation
Add a series capacitor to the above to also limit bass for use with subwoofers.
A powered sub with a 4 ohm amp and an 8 ohm
driver and an 8 ohm passive extension sub is good.
The two most effective things you can do, and I'm not guessing.
rgds, sreten.
Tweaks are possible but I'd have to have them and take them
apart and have a good look before deciding on what to do.
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Hi Sreten, I believe the Behringer active monitors have built-in BSC, switchable from 6dB to 0dB in 2dB increments.
My only complaint about them would be the limited bass extension. As I said earlier, give them a sub that'll nudge 30Hz, and you've a rather good system for very little money (as these things go).
Chris
My only complaint about them would be the limited bass extension. As I said earlier, give them a sub that'll nudge 30Hz, and you've a rather good system for very little money (as these things go).
Chris
I have been 'eliminating' this type of distortion for nearly 30 years now, so I just might have an instinct or two about what's going on, 🙂.
That it's an active speaker is neither here nor there - every audio playback mechanism is a system, with everything that implies. Going into the matter rigidly determined that the cause of the sound not being right has to be because a certain aspect is the weak link, as an intellectual decision, to me is almost a guarantee, at the very least, that the best result won't be achieved.
Amps should be able to be run hard, with no audible effect. There is quite a mental game being played by a lot of people with themselves, who first insist that amps are technically perfect, measurements indicate that distortion will be inaudible, but then say, well, you don't actually take that seriously, the sound is never as good if you use all that 'perfect' power while listening. I'm silly enough to say, the amps can run at so many watts with minimal distortion, therefore they will run at that number of watts, 😀.
It's not clipping that's the problem, it's what's usually called compression - correct working gives what people call 'effortless' sound - which in fact is just ordinary, distortion free sound, what supposedly all good systems deliver, but very few do. Fortunately, there are now a few amplifiers on the market which can do this, in raw form - which wasn't the case a decade or so ago.
So, consider it this way: the goal is to make the Behringer deliver 'effortless' sound under all circumstances, within the constraints of the allowed voltage swings being fed to the drivers.
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Your approach will having you living in Frank's world.
For money you consider blowing on subjectively selected drivers, you could have four matched amplifiers, full programmable dsp system to drive the amplifiers, a decent quality measurement microphone, dedicated sound card to measurement system; and plenty left over for any number of driver combinations that work exceptionally well for 2-way system.
Any product, in any sphere of human activity, can usually be made measurably better - in a metric arbitrarily chosen. My choice is that an audio replay system recreates the sensation and impact of the musicians being in a space connected to where I happen to be. If others wish for perfect frequency response and ideal off-axis behaviour that's fine, but I find that to be a little less interesting ...
Some info about speaker design Building a Do-It-Yourself Loudspeaker Design | Audioholics
I guess this was linked earlier too, written in 2003 http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/speaker-design1.html
fas42 - what you are talking about is "voicing" of a loudspeaker to one's liking. What you are saing about amps is more universal.
A loudspeaker is an acoustic transducer. I makes air molecules move and oscillate and this is well known physics. Speaker driver physics, baffle dimensions, nearby boundaries etc. modify sound radiation and contribute to measurable and perceived "response". We should know and respect these basics, to be able to analyze and develop a design. Add amplifier, crossover and transducer electrical properties to that!
Things like "attack", "clarity", "coherence", "musicality", come from all these but we can't do reverse engineering or modifications from there. But I know that "full range" guys are doing just that and it is a good thing that they have their own forums😎
Anyway, this is a hobby for us here, we can also play with things!
I guess this was linked earlier too, written in 2003 http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/speaker-design1.html
fas42 - what you are talking about is "voicing" of a loudspeaker to one's liking. What you are saing about amps is more universal.
A loudspeaker is an acoustic transducer. I makes air molecules move and oscillate and this is well known physics. Speaker driver physics, baffle dimensions, nearby boundaries etc. modify sound radiation and contribute to measurable and perceived "response". We should know and respect these basics, to be able to analyze and develop a design. Add amplifier, crossover and transducer electrical properties to that!
Things like "attack", "clarity", "coherence", "musicality", come from all these but we can't do reverse engineering or modifications from there. But I know that "full range" guys are doing just that and it is a good thing that they have their own forums😎
Anyway, this is a hobby for us here, we can also play with things!
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Hi !
i have a question
when i look in the drivers datasheets very seldom there are figures/graphs of distortion correlated to the output level
I can usually find TS parameters, physical dimensions but no distortion figures.
Does this mean that they are of no importance ?
Thanks a lot
Kind regards,
gino
i have a question
when i look in the drivers datasheets very seldom there are figures/graphs of distortion correlated to the output level
I can usually find TS parameters, physical dimensions but no distortion figures.
Does this mean that they are of no importance ?
Thanks a lot
Kind regards,
gino
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We can find reliable distortion tests from some diy web pages
Zaph Zaph|Audio and his blog
MarkK http://www.audioheuristics.org/measurements/measurement¤s.htm
Augerpro Brandon T's (augerpro)'s Library | Photobucket
I guess manufacturers dont want to show them because they look ugly!
I would like to see 30¤ and 60¤ offaxis response too, like Beyma, SEAS and Tymphany are showing
Zaph Zaph|Audio and his blog
MarkK http://www.audioheuristics.org/measurements/measurement¤s.htm
Augerpro Brandon T's (augerpro)'s Library | Photobucket
I guess manufacturers dont want to show them because they look ugly!
I would like to see 30¤ and 60¤ offaxis response too, like Beyma, SEAS and Tymphany are showing
Thank you so much for the very interesting information !
I have just given a first look at the Zaphaudio and it is exceptionally informative !
Great selection of woofer interesting for my insane idea
I ask this because, as an example, i read a review of the kef ls50 speakers mentioning the excellent bass response
Then i saw some distortion measurements. Under 125Hz there is very little bass to speak of. Like it should from a woofer just 130mm (5.25in.) big.
So i think that instruments can really tell us one of two things that ears do not tell.
Thanks again for the links.
Regards,
gino
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Hi,
That is arguable. They claim to have correction for speaker
position via the control you mention, however they also
claim said correction is correct for nearfield listening.
Make of it what you will, but a freefield speaker with said
switch set to 6dB is claimed to be good for nearfield.
If so it still won't have enough BSC for farfield.
rgds, sreten.
BTW, if people want to get twitchy about littl' chip amps, consider who's using these TDA7293 units, like in this: Marshall Mode 4 Half Stack at zZounds, and this is what people think of them, MF350 Review | Marshall | Guitar Amplifiers | Reviews @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com
Hi ! well this is very interesting
but hardly a great reference for hifi purpose isn't it ?
Instead i would love to see a chip solution for all stages up to the output stage
with the output stage left out of the chip
When you need big out current the chip amps are limited at 4-5 amperes max
This is not enough
Ok ... you can parallel them but i prefer parallel of discrete bjts like all manufacturers do.
But for limited power they can be ok, i think
Kind regards,
gino
but hardly a great reference for hifi purpose isn't it ?
Instead i would love to see a chip solution for all stages up to the output stage
with the output stage left out of the chip
When you need big out current the chip amps are limited at 4-5 amperes max
This is not enough
Ok ... you can parallel them but i prefer parallel of discrete bjts like all manufacturers do.
But for limited power they can be ok, i think
Kind regards,
gino
Well, that Marshall amp uses just 4 of TDA7293s to produce a genuine 350W of on stage grunt - exactly the same number as your pair of B2030A's! In other words, if correctly executed in a product those amplifiers are sufficiently robust to produce house filling sound ...
Personally, I like that concept - little packets of amplifier power, optimised individually, just keep adding enough of them until there is sufficient grunt for the task at hand. A huge sprawl of discrete components, spread over a sizeable area, with bundles of connections tying things together means more chances for problems to be introduced into the mix ...
Personally, I like that concept - little packets of amplifier power, optimised individually, just keep adding enough of them until there is sufficient grunt for the task at hand. A huge sprawl of discrete components, spread over a sizeable area, with bundles of connections tying things together means more chances for problems to be introduced into the mix ...
Good morning and thank you for the info !
Actually thinking better about this i remember at least one high end amplifier from Jeff Rowland using paralleled chip amps.
Interesting concept.
You have more than one point.
I have an opinion on the amplifiers issue.
A lot of nice preamps have no issue at all to output even 20V with extremely low distortion and noise. 20 clean volts.
and then you have power amps with 1V of sensitivity
I would like to see the voltage gain carried out more in the preamp unit than in the power amp
The power amp should be more a current amplifier so to speak leaving the voltage gain to the preamp.
In this way the power amps could be simpler from a circuit point of view.
I have a dream of a super diamond buffer with the right components of course to source high currents.
A strange idea maybe ... no one does it.
Thanks and regards,
gino
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